Commercialization of Space Travel: It's Robust, It's Ambitious, and It's Innovative.

Good day readers! Today I'm going to do a bit of analysis (this will be lengthy, so please bear with me) and look into the big buzz of commercialization of space travel. We currently have three companies in the ever-growing and developing market: SpaceX, Oribital Sciences and Virgin Galactic. We'll look at each in detail and their accomplishments.

SpaceX:

SpaceX was founded by founder of PayPal Elon Musk back in 2002, having a vision of changing space tech to eventually having people live on other planets in a cost-effective and feasible manner. In 2008, SpaceX had their first successful launch and orbit of the Falcon 1 which would lay the groundwork for their current vehicle, the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. In the same year, NASA awards SpaceX with a $1.6B contract, garnering worldwide attention. In 2009, the first successful delivery of a satellite into Earth orbit is done. In 2010, the Falcon 9 has its first successful launch, pushing the mission objective of SpaceX to launch the Dragon Capsule, the first private spacecraft to be developed and launched. In 2012, the Dragon Capsule visits the International Space Station (ISS), furthering SpaceX to higher acclaim and attention from many people and countries. Following the end of 2012 to now in 2013, SpaceX is developing a new craft; the Grasshopper, which has so far shown to be very promising in all of its tests.

SpaceX has continued to meet all expectations and even exceed them, developing cost-effective methods of space travel, and is coming near the point where they will develop a rapidly reusable rocket by combining data points from both the Falcon 9 v1.1 and the Grasshopper tests. It's been a truly exciting past five years for SpaceX, and many are expecting great follow-through from them going forward.

Orbital Sciences:

Orbital Sciences is a relatively new face in the realm of private space travel but not so much to space travel as a whole. Founded in 1982, Orbital Sciences found its home in the manufacturing and launching of satellites and missile defense systems. The company has four main groups. The Space System Group (SSG) handles the main bulk of the satellite launches; commercial, civil and military. The Launch System Group (LGS) handles the sending of small payloads into orbit. The Technical Services Division (TSD) handles all the behind-the-scenes work to make sure that all operations run smoothly. The Advanced Program Group (APG) is the group that is involved with the development of the Cygnus Spacecraft, which brings Orbital Sciences into the light of commercial private space travel. In September of 2013, the Cygnus Capsule successfully docked with the ISS, a grand accomplishment for Orbital Sciences.

Albeit Orbital Sciences being new to the market, they were what has now made this area competitive, as before them there was only SpaceX. Many great things are also expected of Orbital Sciences.

Virgin Galactic:

Founded by the well-known jack-of-all-trades Richard Branson in 2004, Virgin Galactic plans to mainly provide suborbital spaceflights to "space tourists", as well as sub-orb launches for space science missions and small satellites. The first full successful test flight was conducted on April of 2013. Since the announcement of Virgin Galactic's plan for public space tours, over 500 persons have signed up and paid for a ticket to space. Public flights will begin December 25th, 2013 according to Richard Branson during a morning show in May of 2013.

Although not really in the same competition as SpaceX and Orbital Sciences, Virgin Galactic is just a testament to the slowly but surely growing popularity of space travel to the public, and the continued innovation and resiliency of Richard Branson.